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Orc
Back to Races ---- Buildings ''Orchold'' Between producing Kobolds for mine stuffing, Kobold Snipers for tower filling, researching the lord skills and upgrading the keep, the Orchold can become quite busy. From an early point in the game you will find yourself building more of these to help keep the flow of Kobolds / Snipers while still maintaining tiring. The Orchold if surprisingly small for a main keep, so you shouldn't have problems placing them down to be built. This is a great boon considering that you'll end up building another one early on. Ogrelord: Allows the production of Orgres. (Requires level 3) Giantlord: Allows the production of Giants. (Requires level 5) ''Battleyard'' Battleyards make up the core of your base, which means you'll be building plenty of them! Not only do they produce the Orcs' core units, but also their Titan and a few researches. It's these very researches that make the Orc infantry viable even towards late game, but yet they're all available right from the beginning (excluding Thump). However, obtaining them all immediately is not advised - Training is the only one you should purchase after building the Battleyard as it will only affect units produced after it has been obtained. The others can be purchased later, once you have an army ready. Training: +10 XP for newly produced units. Cowards!: Orc infantry do double damage vs missile units. No Pain!: Orc infantry become highly resistant to missiles. Thump: +10 damage for Ogres. ''Goblin Tower'' As you would expect from its name, the Goblin Tower produces Goblins. Aside from that, it's your run-of-the-mill scout tower, possessing minor aerial offenses and researches view sight bonuses. Scout towers are usually useless when no fog of war or hidden map are not in play, but it still has its uses in such circumstances due to it being ablt to produce units. Admittedly, the units produced aren't anything you'll be building an army around, but with Goblins for early game scouting and Gobshooters for decent long range splash damage will ensure the building's worth. Eagle Eye 1: +2 view range to all troops and buildings. Eagle Eye 2: +3 view range to all troops and buildings. (Requires Eagle Eye 1) Eagle Eye 2: +4 view range to all troops and buildings. (Requires Eagle Eye 2) ''Beast Pit'' Beast Pits produce only the Orcs' cavalry - Wolfriders. It also offers some decent upgrades to them, making them very fast and gives their attacks the added chance of leaving the victim with a Disease. The building isn't particularly big, nor is it costly, but you wont be building many of them, anyway. Wolfpack 1: +2 speed for Wolfriders. Wolfpack 2: +4 speed for Wolfriders. (Requires Wolfpack 1) Wolfpack 3: +6 speed for Wolfriders. (Requires Wolfpack 2) Rabies: Allows Wolfriders to transmit Disease. ''Hovel'' Hovels are a pure army limit building - doing nothing other than increasing your army limit by 3 points instead of the usual 2. They are cheap, quick to build and are relatively small. However, one could question their use when you could just build a tower in the same space, which offers nearly as much army limit but also helps defend your base. Because of this, you may find yourself building Hovels only when you absolutely need it. I.E: You have a bunch of large units stuck in production and need them out ASAP, or when the boundaries of your base are massive and have a decent amount of protected "free space" that's not necessarily needed for production buildings. ''Brood'' Orcs don't make much use from their Brood, mainly using it to produce Swamp Dragons. Harpies can be useful in some very specific situations, but those situations are usually rare to the point that you forgot that you can even produce them. Bats can help out with scouting, but as Goblins are available at tier 1, they would have already made their appearance by this point and uncovered most of the map. As such, you can put off building Broods until a much later point in the game, sometimes only at tier 5 where the Swamp Dragon becomes available. Harpy Hag: +3 combat to Harpies. ''Prison'' Prisons are an unique building for the Orcs in the sense that it doesn't require stone to build. However, the unit it produces, the Troll, requires only stone. Because of Trolls heavy stone cost, which faces competition with the rest of the Orc economy, it can be difficult to consistently produce them. As such, you will rarely have enough stone to have multiple ones in production at the same time, and so, you wont have need for many Prisons in your army. The Slavehorde skill can be useful for maintaining mine-fillers while your Orchold(s) are pumping out Kobold Snipers. Although, the gold cost between the two units can clash. Slavehorde: Adds an interactive ability to the Prison that allows it to summon up to 10 Thralls for 200 gold ''Shaman's Hut'' Up until now, the Orcs haven't had much need for crystal - with only a single unit and a few researches that required some (and then Dragons later on). That all changes with the Shaman's Hut. Not only does the building itself requires crystal to be built, but the unit it produces, the Goblin Shaman, requires an extreme amount. Goblin Shaman are fantastic spell casters and a large horde of them will raze anything that it unfortunate enough to meet them. Even a well defended base can be over run momentarily. With such a powerful unit that has a slow production time, you would want to get as many in production as you can afford. This usually means that you'll be building quite a few of these buildings - not as many as the Battleyard, but certainly more than any other "side" production building. It's also a good idea to set the attitude of these buildings onto "Magic Defender", so your Goblin Shaman produced from it automatically adopt the same attitude. Shaman: +10 damage for Goblin Shaman and Minotaur Shaman. Also allows Totems to be built. ''Totem'' Totems are fantastic anti-aerial defense posts that can give even Dragons a hard time. This is due to their hefty 50 magic type attack and a speed of 4. However, Totems aren't very durable and can be toppled easily, so they shouldn't be alone. It's usually best to place them behind your main towers (but not directly next to them). Fortunately, Totems are also very small buildings, so you wont be hard pressed to find space for them. ''Tower (Orc) The Orc Tower is one of the better Towers any race could build. It has respectable stats across the board and is even cheaper than other Towers that have inferior stats. However, the huge downside with the Orc Tower is that, like with every Orc building, it cannot be repaired. This means you'll end up loosing more Orc Towers than you would with other races due to this simple factor. Fortunately, Orcs have access to an advanced missile unit to stuff them with - Kobold Snipers. This massive boost to the Tower's damage and range will help greatly in keeping enemies away from them, something that you would want more so now than ever before. It would also be wise to build walls around them, even Ramparts, just so there's something expendable to take a few hits - which you could always destroy yourself and then rebuild when there are no threats around to "refresh" the Tower's "bodyguard". Units ''Kobold - Orc Builder The kobold is a somewhat average builder for the Orcs with a peculiar ability in Poison. They construct better than the worst builder in the game, but only marginally (Thralls have build skill 8). With or without the Training research, they will remain very unsuitable for any combat situation and should only really be used against big units for their Poison ability in the direst of circumstances. ''Goblin - Orc Scout'' Goblins are small and swarmy units with the capability to give out Disease. Without the training research, they are around as useless as Kobolds. With Training however, they become an annoyingly dangerous swarmy creature that can fill the Orc ranks as semi-dangerous fodder. ''Orc'' ''- Orc Basic Infantry'' The Orc is the basic infantry unit for the Orc race. It bears somewhat poor stats by comparison of the Snakeman for example (which has the same cost), but it more than makes up for that with its upgradability. Once fully upgraded, Orcs will be coming out at least level 3, be highly resistant to missiles (almost as much as Skeletons) and deal double damage to all missile units. All of this stapled onto a unit with piercing vulnerability allows the Orcs vulnerability to apply only in melee combat, which is a massive boost. ''Kobold Sniper - Orc Advanced Missile Unit'' The basic missile unit for the Orc race. It bears fantastic ranged ability, but at the cost of high frailty. These units can outrange ungarrisoned towers and are extremely effective against Dragons (except Dragonliches) and any high combat enemies which can't normally be taken down with other units. ''Bat - Basic Flier'' There are pretty much two uses of Bats - scouting and tower fodder. As the Orc basic infantry is vastly superior in the later regard once upgraded, this leaves the Bat with the only option of scouting. Unfortunately, it has to compete with the Goblin who is available earlier and has the bonus of inflicting Disease. Still, Bats are cheaper, take up less pop cap and can fly. If you have need of scouts in tier 2, then, unless you really want to spread Disease, Bats would be ideal. ''Wolf Rider - Orc Cavalry'' The basic cavalry for the Orc race. It has the highest speed out of all the orcs which is also upgradable, so makes it good for following slower enemy heroes. Their second-greatest use is against melee piercing damage enemies such as Scorpions as they do not bear the piercing vulnerability as their basic infantry counterparts. ''Goblin Chief - Orc Advanced Infantry'' Goblin Chiefs orient to the swarm playstyle of the Orcish race. They are reasonable tough and strong, but have a crippling weakness to piercing. The best of this unit it in its ability. Due to this ability, they can summon hordes of Goblins which can then be used to harass and Disease the enemy or as fodder. ''Thrall - Primitive Builder'' At tier 3 Orcs can obtain Thralls from Prisons via the Slavehorde skill. As they are "summoned" in batches of 10, you can instantly fill a mine to its maximum capacity, and even have some left over. Although, by this stage in the game all your starting mines would have been filled, leaving only the more trickier mines, which questions whether they're actually worth the risk of filling. Mine filling is the only thing that makes Thralls useful to Orcs, for their building skill is less than the actual Orcish builder, the Kobold. ''Troll - Orc Basic Missile Unit'' Trolls are the advanced Orcish missile unit, obtainable at HQ level 3 (rather than HQ level 2 of Kobold Snipers). They may do the same damage as a Kobold Sniper as well as have less range, but it more than makes up for this in crushing damage and physical resilience. The ability to pick up and throw sheep is also a nice bonus. ''Ogre - Orc Advanced Infantry'' Ogres are the first bit of true muscle the Orcs have got to offer. The Ogre is very different to most of the other Orcish units, as it has high resistance and a resistance to Fire. Its piercing vulnerability means it won't be used against arrow towers any time soon, but it can still prove useful in situations on the battlefield or against Dark Elven or Daemon towers. ''Gobshooter - Orc Siege Weapon'' The only siege weapon for the Orcs. It launches goblins, which have a chance to spawn where the goblin projectile landed. Goblins spawned from this siege weapon will always be set on Rampant. Gobshooters are surprisingly tough and difficult to remove. With the right support, Gobshooters are capable of smashing enemies or buildings as it pleases. Unfortunately, that incredible cost will nearly always get in the way of its production so it is unlikely to see the battlefield often. ''Harpy - Advanced Flier'' The Harpy is yet another unit that Orcs get which can inflict some kind of illness, but it wont be anything you'll be relying on. Its ability to drain mana also wont be seeing much use, either, as most of the Orc race has the durability (especially with the Training skill) to endure most damaging spells thrown at them. They can be useful against High Elves - stopping Manticores and Moonguards from casting their, otherwise deadly, Multishot spells that would normally hit Orcs / Ogres and Goblin Shaman against their piercing weakness. ''Goblin Shaman - Orc Spellcaster'' The Shaman is a small Orc spellcaster that is capable of berserking nearby units, calling down lightning on nearby enemies and can control whether it's day or night (all Orcs get +2 combat at night). The lightning can be quite devastating when combined with other Shamans but is somewhat underwhelming. Fortunately, Goblin Shamans should never reach the front line since an upgrade in its damage will spell cold, icy doom to anything it fires at. Once the Goblin Shaman is fully upgraded, it is capable of absolutely mowing anything with its powerful ~ 39 cold damage attack. Paired with arrow resistant berserk Orcs, one can easily see why these are so effective, especially compared to its negligible costs (Orcs never use Crystal outside of the Shaman, Dragons and Harpies). ''Giant - Orc General'' The Giant is the Orc General, produced at the Battleyard like the Orc, Ogre and Gornak Elfeater. Compared to the Ogre: 4 more combat, 80 more hits, 2 more speed, 5 more armor, same resistance, 20 seconds more build time, costs 50 more stone, 1 more setup point, 2 more army points, strikes have splash damage, can convert buildings, not vulnerable to piercing, resistant to crushing instead of fire, has a massive view range and lastly has Fear. When weighed up, the slight increased cost is less than a pittance compared to the massive plethora of bonuses it gets over Ogres, discounting the fact that it's size is still bugged at 2x2 in 1.03.24. As soon as the Orc player gets access to Giants, unless the Orc player is against a fire-wielding enemy, Ogres are simply outclassed entirely. ''Fire Dragon - Elite Flier'' Orcs are unfortunately one of the 2 races in the game that gets both the Fire Dragon and Swamp Dragon. This effectively means Orcs only get one Dragon type as the Swamp Dragon is identical to the Fire Dragon, but with the added bonus of lowering enemy armor. Because of this, there is simply no reason to build Fire Dragons when playing as Orcs. ''Swamp Dragon - Elite Flier'' The Swamp Dragon is a fantastic Dragon choice, unfortunately, its pretty much the only Dragon choice Orcs get. The Orc race lacks fire damage for dealing with buildings / siege weapons effectively, but the Swamp Dragon fills that gap nicely which its incineratingly powerful splash attacks. The added bonus of eroding armor can be used to soften enemy Dragons and Titans, making them that much easier to be taken down with the likes of Kobold Snipers, or, if you're feeling bold, Ogres / Giants. ''Gornak Elfeater - Orc Titan'' The titan for the Orcish side is a half-breed Giant-Troll riding a massive Basilisk. By comparison to other ranged titans, he sacrifices range and a tidbit of damage for the ability to petrify enemies and a decent amount of hits for a ranged titan. He's not the most overwhelming of titans, but his petrification ability can prove very useful should he be backed up sufficiently. Outside of that, his range sacrifice has made him much more unable to pose a threat to a base compared to both The Lion Throne and Iriki for example (both of which can out-range un-garrisoned towers, The Lion Throne out-ranging even non-Dwarven garrisoned ones). Strategy Overall The Orcs are a formidable anti-metagame race with fast producing and often powerful units throughout the majority of the game. Their greatest weakness isn't easily exploited either due to the air defence and speed of the units (the Wolfrider does need upgrades to become fast enough to counter certain siege weapons). Pile on top the fact that there are multiple units with distinct costs and researches, and you have one of the most effective races in the game. ''The Race'' Units Orcs have a wide variety of units and are all immune to both poison and disease, some of which are disease carriers themselves. They are quite fast to produce and reasonably strong early in the game. The Orcs start off the game with access to multiple Orc researches and the Training research. Those who have played other races where the Training research is present know just how valuable this research is. Training improves the general power of all units that are produced. This power boost is a rather significant one, and is vital to get. Another vital research is the No Pain! research. With No Pain!, Orcs basically turn into hyper Skeletons, capable of sponging arrows and dealing quite a bit of whack back to any archer that dares to get in their path. By this point, Goblins and the vision upgrades are available at the Goblin Tower, but due to the gold costs of Kobolds, it would be recommended to only roll these out as fodder after sufficient amounts Gold mines have been acquired. Wolf Riders are quite easy to access (HQ level 2 at the Beast Pit), but require upgrades to become effective. Fortunately these upgrades cost Crystal so the research cost is effectively just time since the Orcs don't use Crystal until later. Wolf Riders actually aren't a requirement, they mostly can only be used to counter piercing damage melee units (bar Pikemen and Halberdiers), chase heroes and spread disease around a bit. Trolls are a welcome addition to the Orc arsenal, and can be access by HQ level 3 at the Prison. The cost of Trolls means the Orc player won't be producing Ogres any time soon, but they're only usable against Daemons and Dark Elves anyway. Trolls can pack quite a punch against anything standing in their way, whether unit or building. In the case where the Orc player is against Daemons or Dark Elves (or any fire damage prevalent set up), replace Trolls with Ogres. Against any arrow tower races, Orcs should be spammed massively and thrust into the opponents base to cause as much problems as possible as early as possible. There are few races capable of containing an Orc spam, but if they do, back them up later with Trolls and possibly some Goblin Shamans. That combination of units is almost unstoppable - the Orcs take all the arrow damage, whilst they all dish out a variety of damage types which nothing can resist. Even cavalry counter attacks against the mob of Trolls and Goblin Shamans go down badly both thanks to the Troll's toughness and sheer power and the powerful cold damage and Call Lightning spell of the Goblin Shaman. Kobold Snipers can be used for defence or in certain circumstances where the enemy have got Dragons already. The complexity of the Orc units is quite deep, and other tactics can be used in many different ways. Goblins can be spammed as fodder against non-arrow towers whilst Trolls or Goblin Shamans smash them down, or you could simply spam Goblins just to harass and disease the opponent's base before finishing them off. Note: Orcs can be a very useful support race with Minotaur allies due to the ability of the Minotaurs to produce Sheep for the Trolls to throw. Buildings Orcs have a few researches, but not as many as a lot of other races. That said, the researches the Orcs have are all they need, and are usually very powerful. Buildings are nothing out of the ordinary, except for the 100 Gold and 200 Stone cost of Battleyards, making them more awkward to construct as well as place as they're somewhat large in certain areas. Orcish towers would be good examples of a tower were it not for the unique Orcish ability to be unable to repair buildings, which is quite possibly their greatest weakness, although somewhat difficult to take advantage of. By thr time the Orcs get to HQ level 4, they will have access to the Shaman's Hut, which has a research required to build Totems. Totems are unique Orcish air defence structures with around 150 hits and 50 magic damage. These Totems are highly effective at anti-air defence, particularly against tougher air units such as Dragons. ''Heroes'' The Orcs have a tough choice of heroes due to their odd qualities. Out of the list though, there are a couple of outstanding concepts. However, both of which require a fairly high level (past 30). Unfortunately, Orc hero classes tend to be pretty difficult to create since their low level skills may not be enough to support them through tough battles easily. The Tinker may look like a poor choice for an Orc hero, but the Orc Lord skill can be spammed along with Charisma to give a Chieftain-styled morale bonus over the horde. There are other upsides too, the main ones being crucial access to both Smelting and Quarrying, albeit at fairly high levels. These skills can be used to turn the hero into a Merchant, but for the Orcs. What is great is that there is access to Alchemy should you want it, giving further bonuses by allowing resource trading, acquiring of mines in that massive command radius and a small mercantile bonus via the Charm spell. It is possible to abuse Demolition and become a building destroyer, but again, the requirement is a high level hero. If you choose to go for a melee building destroyer, either choose Warrior or Monk depending on whether you value toughness or damage more respectively. A spell sphere choice for the Orcs is unfortunately quite difficult. The Orcs have no mana or spellcasting researches, so Orc wizards will get no support from the race. A Runemaster could be used simply to repair damaged Orc buildings, but usually it won't help aid the win condition for the Orcs so it may be a little risky. The synergy Orcs have in Chaos Magic can only really be abused on Goblins since they're already fodder, making them weaker changes basically nothing. Making them stronger however, can make them into a serious threat. Counters *A large issue for any Orc player is the fact that they cannot repair any of their buildings. Abuse this maximally by attempting to attack guarded points from different angles in the attempt to further damage and eventually destroy defensive positions. Although catapults are weak against most Orc units, they can be used to devastating effect against buildings too. Units with an enormous sight radius can really help to pinpoint enemy locations and proceed to volley the enemy buildings with catapult fire. *Orcs may have good defensive units, but both them and their buildings cost Metal and Stone. Strip any Orc player of these, and it is very likely they will have a much harder time throughout the game. Also remember when attacking Orc mines, they cannot repair them just like any other of their controlled buildings, so the above tactic can be used against the mines too. *Interestingly, the massive cost of Orcish towers is quite an issue. Orc players may frequently run out of Stone when building stronger units or these towers. Cutting an Orc player's Stone supply off will weaken their defence dramatically. *Some orc units are vulnerable to piercing attacks; this is the case for the Orc (though the No Pain! upgrade helps against ranged piercing attacks), the Ogre, the Goblin Chief and the Goblin Shaman (who is also vulnerable against slashing and crush) . Factions with powerful or many piercing attacks might cause much trouble against them (e.g High Elves where upgraded Iceguards can prove devastating or The Swarm who have access to Scorpionmen and Scorpions.) Lore